Katya Valeska

This is something I’ve never given thought to about or even bothered to think about, but more and more I have watched people speak about their Rez Day like a RL birthday. So, I guess that Katya is four years today. Four years of Second Life – involving heartache, match make, love, chaos and overall fun. Of course I would be lying if I said I never shelved her, put her away for months at a time. She wasn’t meant to be a main avatar at all. Just an avi made for a friend that never came into Second Life.

Instead, she became mine. I took her out when the boyfriend at the time finally admitted he was cheating on me. That he had made another avatar. That I had to find out because those he was “playing” with had to sit me down, show me logs and pictures. Is this how relationships in Second Life happen? We keep lies and secrets? I could go on about the annoyance of lies and such, but to each their own in a world where we are playing either ourselves, or are playing someone else. What did I take from this? I got stupid. I brought Katya out, after he begged and pleaded he did wrong. How sorry he was. How he didn’t want to lose me. I brought Katya out to play with the new avi he made in secrecy. I brought Katya out to … be fooled again.

Yet, now I look back and I think to myself. How silly I was. How naive and easy I was to believe. After the second fall from grace within the relationship, Katya got shelved. I pushed her far back as I possibly could and forgot about her. Eventually I returned, pulled her out and dusted her off. It had been over a year. Re-invention was the key, and Katya got one along with a chance to “write” again. Head first into rp, she came out running. First as a “machina dolly”, psychotic and malicious. then to a vicious vampire who would kick your ass if you looked at her wrong. (God bless combat sims…lots of aggression taking out on people I cared not for.) By this time, the hurt had moved on. My eyes were more open to the effects of what Second Life could bring in relation to relationships. I made choices, whether good or bad and made myself stronger. By the time I left the combat sim I was writing in and moved on to a more “para style” type of role-play, Katya had become in a way my “main” avatar.

She started to embody me.

For now, she’s “me”. I’ve used her as my main religiously for almost two years now. She’s always a work in progress, just like myself. An ongoing project that can only get better, even with bumps in the roads. Those “relationships” that I take within Second Life are still an ever-present notice. I’m just not as naive anymore.

* Katya Valeska is a long-term resident of Second Life’s ongoing world. She’s a blogger, friend, lover and observer. You can find her at simplydou.com or helping out those in [SL] Blogger Support.